Linux is struggling on the desktop because it only has a small number of "great" apps, according to the Gnome co-creator. Miguel de Icaza, co-creator of the Gnome desktop, told tech journalist Tim Anderson at the recent Windows 8 Build conference "When you count how many great desktop apps there are on Linux, you can probably name 10," de Icaza said, according to a post on Anderson's IT Writing blog. "You work really hard, you can probably name 20. We've managed to p*** off developers every step of the way, breaking APIs all the time."

Your list can be divided into four (nonexclusive) groups:
1) Multiplatform applications like thunderbird
2) Basic utilities that have as capable counterparts for Windows: for example gparted
3) Cheap knockoffs used only because they don't cost anything or because there is nothing better for linux: LibreOffice is good example here

1) So?
2) Which as capable counterpart to gparted is *free*?
3) I think MSOffice is bloated unintuitive expensive crap and actually like LibreOffice.
4) ???
??? You said four groups ??? Where is number four? Counting is hard I guess.